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Chamber and committees

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 10 February 2025
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Displaying 714 contributions

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Meeting of the Parliament

Budget (Scotland) (No 4) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 4 February 2025

Paul O'Kane

I am very grateful, Presiding Officer, because these are important points and it is important that the people of Scotland hear this debate.

We in the Labour Party are concerned about the short-termism and short-term decisions from the Government. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has criticised the lack of direction on tax policy. The Finance and Public Administration Committee has repeatedly expressed concerns about delays in publishing key financial documents, such as a medium-term financial strategy. The Fraser of Allander Institute has warned of risks stored up and the potential for further emergency measures being needed in the next financial year, although I guess that we should have expected that, as it is an annual occurrence with this Government.

Today is not a new day for the First Minister or the Government. After 18 years, they have lost their way and they have lost ambition for the people of Scotland. It is clear that, after 18 years of such leadership, one budget cannot change course or provide a new direction for our public services. Indeed, it appears that the Government does not recognise that a new direction is required at all, so the only way that we can change direction in Scotland is with a new Government.

16:42  

Meeting of the Parliament

Budget (Scotland) (No 4) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 4 February 2025

Paul O'Kane

I will not. I am not going to let the First Minister, who sat there and laughed at one in six Scots being on a waiting list, justify his position.

The reality is that people are being—

Meeting of the Parliament

Budget (Scotland) (No 4) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 4 February 2025

Paul O'Kane

I am not taking the intervention.

We have the botched national care service, which had to be ditched because the Government would not listen, and people who have learning disabilities are being dramatically failed by the Government.

There is a permanent crisis in our NHS, and what has the answer from the Government been? We have had five plans for recovery for the NHS in less than four years—five plans in my time in the Parliament. We have had three First Ministers, three health secretaries, five recovery plans and a serious lack of new direction and change for the NHS.

The First Minister tells us that everything is going to be all right because he is here, but I do not think that the Royal College of Nursing, the British Medical Association, Unison and other trade unions—all those who have spoken with serious concern about the lack of ambition that the Government has for the NHS—are convinced by that. There is a lack of direction in the budget.

My colleague Mark Griffin outlined the challenges in housing, where the Government is simply replacing money that was lost through serious cuts to the housing budget and doing half of what it should do. Pam Duncan-Glancy outlined with clarity and in some detail the failure in education under the Government.

Of course, we know that it is not just—[Interruption.]

Meeting of the Parliament

Topical Question Time

Meeting date: 4 February 2025

Paul O'Kane

In addition to the communities that Pam Gosal mentioned, in places including Barrhead and Bishopbriggs in my region, the Bank of Scotland has the last remaining branch on the high street and so is the last bank in the town. Does the minister recognise the particular pressure and disadvantage that is put on local communities by there being no banks left in their areas? Although I understand that the Scottish Government cannot compel banks to keep branches open, will he impress on the Bank of Scotland, in his discussions with it, the importance of access to cash in those communities?

Meeting of the Parliament

Budget (Scotland) (No 4) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 4 February 2025

Paul O'Kane

I will close for the Scottish Labour Party in this stage 1 debate on the budget.

Throughout the budget process, a number of things have become clear, and those have been further clarified this afternoon. First, as we have heard, this budget is possible only because the UK Labour Government delivered record investment—the largest block grant in the history of devolution, which added £5.2 billion to Scotland’s budget.

We have heard much commentary on that this afternoon, and there seems to be a disagreement between the back and front benches of the SNP in this chamber. We heard a cautious welcome of that money from the Scottish Government; the finance secretary said that it is a step in the right direction. However, from the back benches, we heard it tutted at and called “charity” or “handouts”. We have had no answers from members on the SNP back benches about what decisions they would have taken in the UK budget in order to deliver that settlement for Scotland. Indeed, SNP MPs did not even go to vote for that budget. It is important to put that on the record as we begin our conclusions this evening.

The second point that it is important to take from this process and from this debate is that the budget was always going to pass. There has been a huge effort on the part of the First Minister and Government ministers to pretend otherwise. At times they have engaged in a level of amateur dramatics that would have rivalled a pantomime—I am glad that Mr Cole-Hamilton got his wish for pantomime season to be extended—and we have seen that repeated in the chamber this afternoon. Indeed, the patter about being always the bridesmaid, never the bride would be more at home in the Pavilion than here in the debating chamber of the Scottish Parliament. It was always clear that the Greens and the Liberal Democrats would sign up to help the Government pass the budget.

Instead of that political intrigue—for which the First Minister and the Government were so desperate in order to distract from the fundamental question how the Government would reform the public sector in Scotland—we have sought to focus on that very question.

Meeting of the Parliament

Budget (Scotland) (No 4) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 4 February 2025

Paul O'Kane

No, I will not. I want to make progress.

That brings me to the point that I want to make about the budget. This is not year 1 of a new Government. It is not the first budget that this Government has delivered. It is the 18th budget under the SNP and the 17th budget of a Government with John Swinney at its heart. There are members here who had just left school when the First Minister began to deliver budgets in Scotland.

Instead of this budget being an opportunity taken to transform public services, it is a correction of some of the worst mistakes that the Government has made, which have been 18 years in the making by the SNP. It is a missed-opportunity budget delivered by a tired Government that has lost its way.

This afternoon, my colleagues have outlined where the problems are in our public services. Michael Marra—[Interruption.]

The Government would do well to listen to this point, because it is very serious and very stark.

Meeting of the Parliament

Budget (Scotland) (No 4) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 4 February 2025

Paul O'Kane

The Government spent months shadow-boxing on those issues. We were threatened with the breakdown of public services, with the rise of Elon Musk and with all manner of issues. The reality is that the budget does not provide a new direction in our public services on which we could build a consensus in Scotland. It does not change the direction of the Government or the country.

Meeting of the Parliament

Budget (Scotland) (No 4) Bill: Stage 1

Meeting date: 4 February 2025

Paul O'Kane

Yes, it is, First Minister. One in six Scots is on an NHS waiting list on the First Minister’s watch. There are 100,000 Scots waiting more than a year for treatment, fewer operations and people languishing in pain.—[Interruption.]

Members are laughing about the state of the NHS in Scotland. That is, quite frankly, appalling. It is clear that a botched national care service has not delivered—

Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]

First Minister’s Question Time

Meeting date: 30 January 2025

Paul O'Kane

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s report is, of course, serious and sobering, as it is every year. It shows that the child poverty rate in Scotland is static at 24 per cent, which means that 250,000 children are in poverty. The First Minister and I have previously had constructive debates on the matter, and it will not be lost on him or members across the chamber that the current rate means that we are seriously off course with regard to meeting the statutory child poverty targets that are set by the Parliament.

The report also highlights that a higher than average proportion of working-age adults are unemployed or economically inactive and that households in Scotland in which someone is in work took home a lower level of earnings than the UK average.

Does the First Minister recognise the importance of supporting people into secure, well-paid work? Given the cuts to employability services over recent years, what is his Government doing to reverse the trends that are outlined in the report?

Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]

General Question Time

Meeting date: 30 January 2025

Paul O'Kane

With less than 18 months of parliamentary time left in this session, it sounds to me that that is another promise made by the Scottish National Party in its manifesto that will not be met. Broken promises have consequences, particularly for people in many local authorities across Scotland who are looking at having to introduce care charges for the first time for people who have physical and learning disabilities.

It also sits on the back of a litany of promises that were made to disabled people, including access to a changing places toilet fund; annual health checks for people with learning disabilities; the proposed learning disabilities, autism and neurodivergence bill; the human rights bill; and the ditched national care service. We have also learned today that £20 million of the community living change fund has been wasted or is unaccounted for. When will the minister and her Government finally deliver on the pledge to end non-residential care charges and rectify a long list of broken promises to Scotland’s disabled community?